Saturday, 18 January 2014

The Saturday Squirm

Saturday squirm - noun. Rotation of the body back into the foetal position upon realisation that it is Saturday, often accompanied by adjustment of bed linen to form a cocoon around the body.

I don't know about you, but Saturday mornings inspire the same feeling in me every time I open a bleary eye anytime before 9am - oh it's Saturday, I'm going back to sleep. This thought is then accompanied by serious re-arranging of limbs until I find a position I'm happy to spend several more hours in. When I finally feel sufficiently guilty to leave my bed, and realise that we're well into the afternoon and I haven't eaten in 10 hours, I feel compelled to make something sweet, and wonderful, and epic. Here are a few things I've made on a lazy Saturday morning.

Fluffy cloud pancakes with mixed berries. Feeling tired of flat pancakes (and how defeatist they look), I found a great recipe for fluffy pancakes here, and folded 6 fluffy, beaten egg whites into my normal pancake mixture for added height and softness. Since I don't have an electric mixer, beating those egg whites was a great upper body workout!

Giant cinnamon scroll cake. Ever since I saw this recipe, I've been dying to try it. Not because I love giant things (I actually prefer miniatures), but because it's the perfect combination of two of my favourite pastries - pain au raisin and cinnamon scrolls. It has the soft, fluffy, doughy texture of a pain au raisin (which you can just rip apart) and the heavenly smell and taste of cinnamon scrolls. I wasn't too sad about losing the raisins - it was sweet and buttery enough without them.

The only thing I didn't like about this recipe was the waiting. Waiting for the initial ball of dough to rise, and waiting for the assembled scroll to rise again before baking. But boy was it worth the wait. And honestly, seeing the magic of dough rise before your very eyes is pretty special too. Sort of like watching a child grow up, but without having to change any nappies.